“You have just sent a message that Barack Obama will be a one-term president,” Bachmann exclaimed to a swarm of supporters and reporters after the results were announced. “This was a wonderful down-payment on taking the country back.”

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who had spent most of the past month and much of his war chest here in an attempt to win Ames, came in a distant third with 2,293 votes — a disappointing finish that spelled the end of his campaign. On Sunday, he dropped out of the race.

On a mild summer day, 16,892 Iowans cast ballots on the campus here at Iowa State University. That was an increase of nearly 3,000 votes from the 2007 straw poll and an indication of the enthusiasm Iowa Republicans have going into next year’s election.

“It means people are very concerned about the direction of the country,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said of the surge from four years ago.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum came in fourth, with 1,657 votes, a small margin ahead of former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain, who got 1,456 votes.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the national GOP front-runner and Ames winner in 2007, didn’t contest this year’s straw poll but still captured 567 votes.

In a sign of the reshaped Republican race, that was less than the amount Rick Perry received. The Texas governor, who announced his candidacy today in South Carolina, won 718 write-in votes.

But if Perry wants to eventually take Romney on head-to-head, it appears he’ll have to first confront Bachmann in Iowa. The two will face off Sunday in Waterloo, when both will speak at a county GOP dinner in what will be Perry’s first trip to the Hawkeye State as a candidate.

In less than two months since announcing her candidacy in her native Waterloo, the Minnesota congresswoman rapidly climbed in the polls here and won a passionate following among the Christian conservatives who are a pillar of the Iowa GOP. Bachmann benefited, too, among fiscal conservatives from her intense opposition to raising the debt ceiling — the central political issue in the weeks leading up to the straw poll.

“I think it says a lot about constitutional conservatism,” said Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), one of her closest friends in Congress. “It says a lot about the tea party. It says a lot about the social conservative agenda — life and marriage — and the fiscal issues, too. She’s taken a strong stand against raising the debt ceiling. Others disagree with that position, but it held up well here.”

Bachmann also never missed an opportunity to remind Iowans that she was born and spent her early years in the state. On the stump and in TV ads leading up to the straw poll, she recalled her Waterloo childhood.